9. ATLAS
Chapter nine
ATLAS
HOW CLOSE IS TOO CLOSE?
I hate to be touched. I avoid it whenever possible, so why am I not moving my leg away from his under the table?
Instead of the familiar crawling sensation that usually floods my body under the touch of another person, all I feel through my leg right now is warmth, a warmth I’m not ready to let go of.
“Are the stables ready?” Dean asks.
“The wild horses picked their new stalls. Now we just need the new additions to come and fill the rest.”
“What happens if two horses pick the same stall?” Matthew asks, and I turn a little in my seat to answer. My leg presses harder against his under the table, but he still doesn’t pull away. Neither do I.
“They can share, or we entice one into another stall with something they’ll love.”
“Like how you coax Chewy out of the pool with carrots?” he asks.
“Pretty much,” I reply, and it’s then that I notice the tiny flecks of gold in his hazel eyes. They’re like little starbursts surrounding his pupils like a flower glowing in the sun.
“They’ll be here in the morning. The driver rang an hour ago,” Dean says, and I turn back, hoping my moment lost in Matthew’s eyes was only clocked by me.
I stand, a chill rolling through my body the second my connection with Matthew is broken.
“I should go check to make sure there’s nothing I’ve forgotten,” I say, and I leave before anyone can change my mind.
I don’t need to double-check anything. I know the stables are ready, I just needed to get out of that room. I needed to force myself away from Matthew and the strange feeling he was stirring inside me. But even out here in the cool night air, I can’t shake the thoughts of him.
I take off at a jog along the path, then I stop at the pool through the trees and start stripping off my shirt as I head over. I kick off my shoes as soon as I’m through the gate and step out of my jeans, leaving my briefs on, and then I take a deep breath and dive in headfirst.
All the noises of the farm disappear under the surface of the water.
The water envelops my body and brings the same calm that being naked usually does, so I sit there on the bottom, intending to stay for as long as I can, as I hold my breath, letting the silence calm my nervous system.
This used to be the only way to calm myself.
I’d fill the bathtub with cool water and lie beneath the surface, cutting off the noise of the world around me.
My mother first suggested it not long after we came home from the hospital after the accident, as a way to soothe my skin while it continued to heal.
She had no idea it would help with so much more than that.
Under the surface, everything stilled, even my own thoughts. The flashbacks of the fire disappeared as if the water itself had doused the flames inside my mind.
It wasn’t anyone’s fault. The fire that is.
Lightning struck one of the apple trees in the orchard behind our small farm.
The hay caught quickly; I’d only just filled the stables that afternoon, and it was the first place I ran to when my mother’s voice woke me.
My father was already cutting through the dry grass in an attempt to spare what he could, but I didn’t care about the grain we’d lose, only the horses that cried out for help.
I ran in without fear for my own life and freed four of them before the flames took hold of the furthest stalls, but I couldn’t leave them trapped there to burn alive. I ran back in and reached through the flames to unlatch their gates, and was knocked to the ground as they ran to freedom.
My mother dragged me free from the stalls before I succumbed to the smoke, her cries haunting my dreams for months under the backdrop of a stable engulfed in brilliant flames and screaming horses.
I spent months in the hospital, having skin grafts, people poking and prodding at me, always there, always touching.
They’d undress the wounds, redress the wounds, take blood, check vitals, always interrupting the little sleep I had.
It became so that even the sight of them coming into the room would bring a slithering crawl over my skin.
All my mother wanted to do when I was healed enough was hug me, but I couldn’t bear it. She never once made me feel bad about it, though. She’d ask for a smile instead, claiming it made her just as happy to see it as my hugs once did.
Something breaks through the surface of the water, and I open my eyes as his hands grab my arms and pull me up to the surface.
“I’ve got you,” Matthew yells as he pulls me toward the edge.
I laugh, and he finally stops trying to drag me sideways and turns to me deadpan.
“You’re okay?”
“Did you think I wasn’t?” I ask, and his brow furrows, a sadness in his eyes that sends a pang to my chest. “I swear, I’m okay,” I say, reaching up and cupping his face. His grip on my arms softens.
“I saw you at the bottom. I just… You weren’t moving, and I thought…”
His chest is heaving, as his desperate gaze stares at me wide-eyed, almost as if he’s not believing what he’s seeing.
“Breathe,” I say, moving my hand to lie flat against his chest over his heart. The rapid thumping of it echoes through my palm. “Breathe, Matthew. In slowly. Count to three. Out slowly. Come on.”
He keeps his eyes locked on mine as he follows my direction, slowly breathing in and out, until his heart slows to a steady rhythm and the color returns to his face.
“That’s better,” I say, and he lets go of my arms for the first time since pulling me up to the surface.
“Sorry,” he says, voice barely a whisper.
“For what? Trying to save me?”
“You didn’t need saving, though.”
“No, but you didn’t know that.”
I glance down through the ripples of the water.
“You didn’t even take off your boots.”
“There wasn’t time. I didn’t even think. Shit,” he says, reaching into his pockets under the water and pulling out his phone. Water drips from it, and I bite my lip trying to stifle my laugh.
“It’s really not funny. Do you know how many notes I have on this thing?”
“I’m sure it’s all backed up, though, right?”
He pouts.
“Well, yes, but that still doesn’t make it funny.”
“Sort of kind of does.”
He splashes me, and without thinking, I splash back.
“Oh, you’re in for it now,” he says, and he splashes me again, only this time I grab his wrists, and we spin in the water until he’s pressed against me, his wide smile reaching his eyes that shine even brighter somehow under the moonlight than they ever have.
Then, without thinking, I do something I really shouldn’t.
I kiss him.
He leans into the kiss, soft lips parting for my eager tongue, and I release his wrists to grip his waist as his hands slide around to my back.
I brace for the skin-crawling sensation that’s always there under anyone’s touch, but when it doesn’t come, the ache in my cock spurs me on harder.
I pull him closer, moaning into his mouth.
His hands slip lower, clenching fistfuls of my ass cheeks as he grinds against me. His erection is like a rock through the thick fabric of his soaked jeans.
I’ve never known this. Known what it was like to want someone’s hands on me, to want to know how they feel against my bare skin, and now that I have a taste of what it can be like, I want more. But he pulls away.
“Not here,” he says, glancing past me. “Someone could walk by.”
His words cut through the blinding desire, and I step back.
“You’re right. We can’t do this,” I say, taking another step back.
“I didn’t mean—“
“No. I’m… I’m sorry.”
I turn and push myself up out of the water at the edge of the pool, the cool air surrounding me snuffing out the fire that raged within.
“Atlas,” he calls, and the way he says it, all breathy and desperate, makes me pause.
“We shouldn’t,” I say without turning around.
Not because I don’t want to see him, but because I’m afraid that if I do look into his glistening hazel eyes again, I’ll jump right back into the water with him and never let him go.
“The horses will be here in the morning. I’ll meet you at the stables at seven. ”
“Okay,” he replies, and even though it pains me to hear the defeat in his tone, I know I’m making the right decision.
He isn’t here for the ranch, for the life I live for.
He’s here because he’s been told to be here by the Richmont Group.
And the second they tell him to go somewhere else, that’s what he’ll do too.
So no matter how amazing it felt to finally be close with someone without feeling like I wanted to claw my skin off, I can’t let myself have it, because when he does leave, and it’s a one-hundred percent possibility that he will, it’ll burn me as deeply as those flames did all those years ago.